Why DUSU election 2018 will decide who wins 2019 Lok Sabha poll

The party which won the Delhi University Students' Union election has been victorious in the Lok Sabha election next year on the last five occasions.

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Kumar Shakti Shekhar

New Delhi

September 12, 2018

UPDATED: September 12, 2018 15:59 IST

The party which wins DUSU election 2018 may be victorious in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll. Photo: PTI

HIGHLIGHTS

Delhi University Students' Union election taking place today

Party which wins is victorious in Lok Sabha election

This has been the trend in last five DUSU elections

Though all Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections are important, some are more important than the others. This year's DUSU poll, which is underway today, is one of those significant ones.

The DUSU elections held in the year preceding the Lok Sabha elections have been an indicator towards the party which forms government at the Centre.

The party which won the Delhi University Students' Union election has been victorious in the Lok Sabha election next year on the last five occasions.

All the last five DUSU elections have correctly pointed towards the Lok Sabha election results. This is the reason why the top leadership of the BJP and the Congress is usually involved in the selection of candidates for the DUSU polls.

The DUSU elections have been usually dominated by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the National Students' Union of India (NSUI). While the ABVP is the students' wing of the RSS, the BJP's ideological parent, the NSUI is the students' arm of the Congress.

In that sense, the DUSU polls are a better weather cock for the Lok Sabha election results than those in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU), which is usually dominated by the Left.

The DUSU is dominated by the ABVP or the NSUI just as power at the Centre has been shared by formations led either by the BJP or the Congress all these years.

In the 1997 DUSU election, the ABVP swept all the four posts of the president, vice-president, general secretary and joint secretary. In the 1998 Lok Sabha election, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with late Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to power.

In the 1998 DUSU election, the ABVP won the two more significant posts of the president and general secretary while the NSUI was victorious on the posts of vice-president and joint secretary. In the next year's Lok Sabha election, the BJP-headed NDA returned to power.

The NSUI swept the 2003 DUSU election by winning all the four posts. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, BJP's Vajpayee government lost to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA).

In 2008, though the ABVP won the presidential post, it lost all the other three top slots to the arch-rival NSUI. Nupur Sharma, who presently is a BJP spokesperson, had trounced NSUI's Sonia Sapra in the DUSU election that year. But the ABVP was comprehensively defeated by the NSUI on the other three posts.

This was reflected in the 2009 Lok Sabha election as well when Manmohan Singh-led UPA government returned to power for a consecutive second term.

In the 2013 DUSU election, the ABVP again performed far better than the NSUI, winning three of the four top posts. The ABVP candidates were victorious on the posts of the president, vice-president and joint secretary while the NSUI candidate could win only the secretary's post.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP created a record of sorts by winning 282 of the 543 seats, getting a majority on its own. With Narendra Modi as the their prime ministerial candidate, the NDA won a whopping 325 seats.

From this point of view, this year's DUSU election is also crucial as it will indicate towards the party which may ride to power in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the NDA against a fractured Opposition, the battle of 2019 would be worth watching.

As on the past five occasions, the results of the DUSU election, to be announced tomorrow (September 13), may reflect upon the way the 2019 Lok Sabha election will go.